Welcome to our travel blog. We are Tabitha and Nic. In 2011 we 'retired' in our early 40s and set off to travel the world. We spent our first year in South America and have been lucky enough to make two trips to Antarctica.

Our blog is a record of our travels, thoughts and experiences. It is not a guide book, but we do include some tips and information, so we hope that you may find it useful if you are planning to visit somewhere we have been. Or you may just find it interesting as a bit of armchair travel.

Saturday, February 27, 2016

Kyoto - Arashiyama and the Bamboo Grove

Tenryu-ji Temple, Kyoto

One of the places that we were looking forward to seeing in Kyoto was the Bamboo Grove, so we hopped on a bus to Arashiyama, on the western outskirts. We decided to look at the temple first, in the hope that if we delayed our visit to the Bamboo Grove until lunchtime, there would be fewer people there.
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Tenryu-ji Temple, Kyoto

Tenryu-ji Temple, or the Temple of the Heavenly Dragon, was built as a Palace in 1255, by Emperor Kameyama. It was converted to a Zen temple in 1339 by Shogun Ashikaga Takauji, and dedicated to the recently deceased Emperor Go-Daigo, in the hope of appeasing his spirit after having turned against him in a battle for supremacy.

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Tenryu-ji Temple, Kyoto

The temple, like many places in Japan, was repeatedly destroyed and rebuilt, with the current structure dating from 1864, the Meiji period. The gardens however, remained largely as originally designed by Muso Soseki, who, as well as being a famous Zen garden designer, was also the first abbot of the temple.

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Tenryu-ji Temple, Kyoto

Tenryu-ji Temple, Kyoto

The gardens are very nice, with ryumon-baku waterfalls and landscaping intended to evoke the mountains. Personally I quite liked the mossy areas.

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Tenryu-ji Temple, Kyoto

Tenryu-ji Temple, Kyoto

Bamboo Grove, Kyoto

I don't know whether our plan to be at the Bamboo Grove at a quieter time worked, but in any case, it was still quite busy. In an effort to get a photo that looked like there was no one else there, I tried putting the camera on the longest shutter speed, but my little point and shoot only has a maximum four second exposure, so it didn't really work.
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Bamboo Grove, Kyoto

On the point of people being in photos, why, why, why does it always seem to be the case that the people who persistently get in the way, also are the ones who wear the brightest possible coloured clothing? I can put up with someone wearing neutral colours, but a fluorescent pink jacket is never not going to detract from the subject.

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Bamboo Grove, Kyoto

Anyway, photos aside, we were a bit disappointed with the Bamboo Grove. It was smaller than we had expected, and with all of the people around, it just didn't have that peaceful and tranquil feel that I think it needed.

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Bamboo Grove, Kyoto

Back in the town, we had a wander around the shops, tried some of the unusual ice cream flavours - green tea, sweet potato and pumpkin - before heading home.
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